Outside the Box: RUX Crowdfunds a New Gear Storage System

Meet RUX: the highly adaptable, all-in-one solution for storing/transporting/organizing your stuff.

words :: Feet Banks.

The age-old outdoor enthusiast’s dilemma: having all the gear is awesome, organizing and transporting all the gear—not so much.

“It started with a problem I think we all have,” says Jamie Bond, outdoor media pioneer and admitted gear junkie. “We spend our lives amassing this incredible assortment of gear and toys so we can go play outside, but then spend way too much time each weekend packing, unpacking, and organizing gear from a box to a duffel bag to the truck to a backpack and then we do it all over again in reverse at the end of the adventure.”

Faced with this exact problem, tech entrepreneur-turned-ski-bum (Doglotion.com, HandleBar) André Charland basically snapped one Sunday evening, reportedly shouting, stomping his feet, and unleashing a three-plus minute rant about how dealing with his outdoor gear was eating into his ability to actually enjoy it.

Video courtesy RUX

Never one to rest on his laurels after a good tantrum, André called up Tony Richardson, an industrial designer friend with deep roots in outdoor recreation design (Arc’teryx, Squamish Design Studio) with the idea to create “some kind of bag/box/container thing that is good at carrying/storing/road tripping and also useful once you get to your actual destination.”

Tony laughed, admitted that he’d been considering the exact same problem for a long time, and RUX was officially born.

“We looked at how the intermodal shipping container revolutionized industrial transport,” says Jamie Bond, who joined Andre and Tony as the third leg in the RUX tripod. “Those shipping containers are the best system for storing goods, but they’re also perfect for transporting them across the sea or land. We wanted something that could be just as versatile and useful for our gear.”

“We looked at how the intermodal shipping container revolutionized industrial transport…”

What they came up with was RUX, a gear storage system that’s kind of like a bag (it has handles) and kind of like a box (it has a lid and square walls) but is also weatherproof, compressible, and highly adaptable to suit any specific needs. “We wanted it to do everything, to design an entire system of gear handling awesomeness.”

Check these specs: the RUX is 40cm wide, 50cm long, 35cm deep and holds 70 litres of volume. It also flattens to a depth of 8cm and weighs in at about 2kg. That already sounds better than those blue plastic bins and duffels in my garage, but the magic of RUX is in the details.

“We wanted a utility rail on each side that can attach and detach,” Jamie explains, “So you can use the straps in any configuration or detach them entirely. There’s also an attachment you slide onto the rail so the RUX can hang on a slat wall in your garage or van, and we’re working on a huge list of other attachments. It holds water if you need to put out a campfire or store wetsuits, and the lid is waterproof compressed semi-rigid foam, perfect for a seat or foot mat on snow or sand. It pops up firm so it’s so much easier to pack than cramming stuff into a duffel, on the inside, there are little rails that you can rest divider bags on for easier grab and go, and we designed a removable carry pouch you can put valuables in and quickly grab if you don’t want to leave them in the vehicle.”

“It holds water if you need to put out a campfire or store wetsuits, and the lid is waterproof compressed semi-rigid foam, perfect for a seat or foot mat on snow or sand.”

And most importantly, no zippers. “Tony hates zippers,” Jamie explains, “because they break. We wanted something that is simple, long-lasting, and field repairable. You can take the entire RUX apart with an allen key, so if something does get damaged, you don’t need to throw out the entire system. That really helps lower the environmental footprint.”

After almost two years of rigorous testing, failing fast and redesigning on the fly, the RUX crew are launching their flagship intermodal storage system with a crowdfunding campaign that kicks off today. At the time of writing they’re already over 900% funded. Seems like they are onto something here. “We’ve had a bunch of talented friends help with the testing,” Jamie says. “Of course, local suspects like Hoji [design genius Eric Hjorleifson], rock climbers, mountain bikers, and more importantly some great field testers in the mountain construction and rope access industry. Those guys know how put things to the test!”

If necessity is the mother of invention, the crew at RUX may have just necessitated us all a bunch of free time and space. Less packing/unpacking, more ripping. Check out the RUX campaign and see for yourself.